Before going to meet the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil, I stopped by the Blood Heaven Saber Demon’s quarters. There was something I needed to confirm with him.
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon was sitting by the window, basking in the warm sunlight as he read a book.
“So you really do read books in your spare time.”
“It’s all for show. When I hear your footsteps from afar, I run to the bookshelf.”
Setting the book down, he asked,
“What brings you here?”
Without entering, I stood outside the window and spoke to him.
“I came to ask you about someone.”
“Who?”
“Do you know of the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil?”
For an instant, I sensed the Blood Heaven Saber Demon flinch.
“Why are you asking about him?”
“I’m thinking of drawing him to our side.”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon’s expression creased slightly.
“Damn it. That loose-lipped woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon was so sharp that he had realized the One Flower Sword Venerable had told me about it. In any case, he wasn’t the sort of person to go around spreading this, so I spoke freely.
“It was the Sword Venerable who told me that the one who persuaded him in the first place wasn’t herself, but you, Elder. She did it for your sake.”
“It wasn’t for my sake. She just has a moral obsession with cleanliness.”
“You know each other so well, so why do you quarrel so much?”
“Do strangers ever fight? People fight because they know each other.”
Since I couldn’t refute that, I merely let out a faint laugh.
“So what do you want to ask?”
“How did you persuade the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil?”
That was why I had come to see the Blood Heaven Saber Demon today.
Then an astonishing fact came to light.
“He came to see me first.”
“The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil came to you first?”
“Yes. Why would I go out of my way to seek out that unpleasant fellow and ask for a favor?”
“Senior Sword Venerable was wrong, then.”
“What did she say?”
“She said the persuasion must have worked because you were both villains.”
“What? She lumped me together with a man like that?”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon sprang up, visibly offended.
It might seem like I was tattling for no reason, but this too was part of my effort to reconcile the two of them.
I had to keep bringing each of them up to the other like this. To show that they had not forgotten each other. That they still hated each other. Only then, when an opportunity came one day, would all these fragments come together and make reconciliation possible. There was no such thing as a reconciliation that happened all at once out of nowhere.
“What condition did he offer?”
“He said he’d vote for Cheongseon, so when he asked for help later, I should help him.”
“You accepted without knowing what he might ask of you later?”
“He’ll ask for something for himself, I suppose. If he asks for something absurd, I can simply refuse.”
“You could have at least made a show of it to me. ‘Because of you, I ended up owing him a debt. What are you going to do about it?’ Why did you keep quiet?”
“Make a show of it, my foot!”
When I first met the Blood Heaven Saber Demon, he had truly been calculating and meticulous. The sort of man who seemed as if he would make a fuss over every favor and collect on every debt.
But beyond the door to his heart, once it was opened, there was another Blood Heaven Saber Demon. A man who tossed such showiness into a corner and enjoyed reading books beneath the sunlight.
“Elder, you have to make a show of things sometimes for the other party to know.”
“They don’t need to know. And it didn’t particularly feel as though he helped this time because he wanted to ask something of me. Why would the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil go out of his way to me?”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon looked at me with an expression that said, You know that doesn’t make sense either.
If that intuition was right, then why had he helped us?
“In any case, thank you. I’ll go meet the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil.”
When I bid him farewell, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon reopened the book he had closed, as if he had been waiting for that.
“You’re not worried, even though I’m going to meet the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil?”
“About whom? You? Or the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil?”
I turned away with a smile.
After leaving the Blood Heaven Saber Demon’s quarters, I headed for the Valley of Villains, located in the northeast of the Inner Court.
The Valley of Villains was, as its name suggested, a valley.
It was not a natural valley, but an artificially made one. Along the stream, large and small dwellings where the Faceless Guests resided were lined up on either side.
They seemed to have been built irregularly, anywhere and everywhere, but in truth, it was a kind of fortress constructed under a meticulous plan according to the skill and status of the Faceless Guests, as well as in preparation for outside invasion.
When I sent word at the entrance of the Valley of Villains that I had come to see the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil, a Faceless Guest wearing a white mask guided me in.
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil’s subordinates were called Faceless Guests. They all went about wearing masks—white masks with only eyeholes cut into them.
The eyeholes were shaped like crescent moons laid on their sides, as if smiling. The eyeholes smiled, but the real eyes within did not, and looking at those masks whose elements did not harmonize naturally sent a chill down one’s spine.
At the deepest part of the valley was the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil’s residence. The building had been modeled after a white mask. There was a single window where the eyes would be, and that was likely where the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil resided.
Feeling as though I was being swallowed by the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil, I walked in through the mouth that the mask did not have.
After climbing the spiral staircase that wound upward, I reached the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil’s room.
The emotion I felt the moment I stepped into his room was dread.
Not only the walls on all sides, but even the floor had been painted entirely white, and there was nothing in the room. No table, no decorative cabinet, not even a chair or cushion.
In that truly empty space, only the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil stood alone.
He was facing the wall, dressed in white. If not for the black hair visible at the back of his head, one might not even have known he was standing there. He had blended into the space itself.
Even though I had entered, he continued to stare only at the wall, so I slowly walked over and stood beside him.
“What are you looking at?”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil turned his head toward me. Like the Faceless Guests, he wore a white mask, and within the smiling eyeholes, his gaze was clear and cold.
The mask specially made for the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil had been crafted so that his eyes could not be seen from the outside, but my Divine Eye Art pierced through the darkness, allowing me to see his eyes clearly.
Only then did the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil answer.
“I was looking at nothing.”
His low, deep voice was pleasant to hear, and his tall stature and long limbs gave the impression that he was strikingly handsome. And unlike what one might expect from the name Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil, he was courteous.
Because he was courteous, he was eerie. That was the sort of feeling he gave off.
“It has been a long time, Elder.”
In truth, one could say this was the first time in this life. Aside from seeing him from a distance at official gatherings, this was my first time facing him personally like this.
“Elder? I am still young, so please treat me comfortably, as you would a friend.”
“How many people have departed this world after being deceived by those words?”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil laughed. As befitted his name, he was a man who laughed easily.
“What about you, Second Young Master? Are you usually the one being deceived? Or the one deceiving?”
“If I had to say, I’m the type who pretends to be deceived.”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil laughed out of habit.
“Isn’t it tiring to always laugh like that?”
For an instant, a strange light flowed from his two eyes within the hollow openings.
“Why would laughing be tiring?”
“I wondered if laughing wasn’t harder than crying. Living while crying is easy, but living while laughing is difficult, isn’t it?”
“At last, someone has appeared who understands my hardships.”
Even as he said so, he laughed again. This laugh was loud and exaggerated, like that of an actor in the marketplace.
I do not trust his laughter.
That laughter is like the tendril on the head of a fish that lives in the deep sea. If you are bewitched by that dazzling tendril swaying gently and let your attention be stolen, you will find yourself being drawn into a great mouth before you know it.
Never forget. He is not laughing because he likes you.
“Second Young Master, why have you come to see me?”
I could not reveal that the One Flower Sword Venerable had broken the rules and told me the contents of the vote.
“We have never had a conversation like this before, have we? So I came to seek your guidance and learn what sort of person you are. To be honest, I also came hoping that you would support me instead of my elder brother.”
“Shall we walk for a moment?”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil slowly began walking along the white wall.
“When I organize my thoughts, I walk like this.”
I followed behind him. The string tying his mask dangled at the back of his head. That knot, which would have come undone if a child tugged at it, had never been untied by anyone in the martial world.
As he walked, he spoke.
“If you answer one question, I will consider supporting you positively.”
“Please ask.”
“How did you kill the Soul-Stealing Demon Venerable?”
He tossed out that important question as if it were nothing, and I too answered calmly as I followed behind him.
“I was not the one who killed the Soul-Stealing Demon Venerable.”
“No. You certainly killed him. What I’m curious about is not whether you killed him or not. It is how you killed him.”
He was convinced that I had killed him.
“Second Young Master, I will keep it an absolute secret from everyone else. Tell only me. As I did with Cheongseon, I will give you one more vote.”
“I’ll say it again, I did not kill him.”
At that, the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil abruptly stopped and turned around, striding back toward me. He came right up in front of me and held out his hand.
“Let us be friends.”
I know very well that he is the sort of person who makes such sudden moves.
And this is the second time I have heard these words from him.
When I returned to the main cult to search for the materials for the Great Regression Art, the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil and I had crossed paths. Back then as well, he had said those exact words to me.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Because everyone who became his friend died. With one sole exception.
“Because there are as many as three reasons we cannot be friends.”
“Oh, there are three reasons?”
He openly displayed his curiosity.
“What is the first reason?”
“If we were to act like friends, I would make a mistake someday. A comfortable heart inevitably invites rudeness. Formal speech will prevent my mistakes.”
“What does it matter if you make a few mistakes?”
“That’s true. It would be fine, so long as the other person were not the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil.”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil laughed loudly.
“Our Second Young Master is even more entertaining than the rumors say. Then what is the second reason?”
“The Pavilion Master of Yellow Springs and the Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil do not suit each other.”
“They say evil and good are like two sides of the same coin. If you learn evil from me, it will help you uphold good.”
“That saying was probably made up by the side of evil.”
“What do you mean?”
“How could good and evil be stuck together like two sides of a coin? Evil must lie beneath an endless abyss, while good must be atop that high mountain. It is nothing more than a phrase villains invented to justify themselves.”
Of course, what he had said earlier was a metaphor used to mean that good and evil can coexist within a single human being. But I deliberately separated them far apart, speaking only of good and evil themselves.
“Then you must think of me as a hypocrite, Second Young Master.”
“How could that be? How could a person who proudly attaches the word ‘evil’ to his own title be a hypocrite?”
“Then do you think I am impressive?”
“Evil can never be impressive under any circumstances. The only time evil can appear impressive is when it subdues another evil.”
He laughed. He laughed heartily, but his eyes within the eyeholes had settled coldly. If not for the Divine Eye Art, I would not have known either.
It was merely astonishing that one could laugh so excitedly while having such a sunken gaze.
“So the rumors were true.”
“What rumors do you mean?”
“The rumors that the Second Young Master has become a stiff, suffocating scrap of the righteous sects.”
“If that is how you felt, then perhaps it is because of this. At some point, we became worse than those stiff, suffocating scraps of the righteous sects. So I intend to set things right, even if only now.”
The Laughing Demon of Utmost Evil, who had been laughing softly, asked,
“Is this the new demonic path you dream of, Second Young Master?”
“You could say that.”
“Then you and I can never coexist. I will continue supporting the First Young Master.”
“I suppose it cannot be helped. Then I will take my leave.”
I bowed politely and turned away.
Then he asked from behind me,
“Ah, what is the third reason?”
I stopped on my way to the door and turned back to him.
“I do not become friends with people who wear masks.”
It was a moment when laughter should have come, but he did not laugh.
I saw it.
Though he did not laugh aloud, his two eyes within the eyeholes were smiling. It meant he was truly angry.
Until now, he had never removed his mask in front of anyone. Naturally, no one had ever seen the face beneath that mask. No one knew what he looked like, or about how old he was. Telling him to remove his mask was taboo, and a reverse scale.
But even he had shown his face to another person exactly once in his life.
To me before the regression, when I had come to obtain the materials for the Great Art. To me, the only one who became his friend and survived.
I had seen the face beneath that mask.